The Devil's Water it Ain't so Sweet
by xxCerezasxx
Summary: AU of S4. Dean comes back from hell with something extra, something he can't seem to get rid of, something inside him. Dean/Castiel, Dean/Alastair.


**Rating:M(some sex, violence, torture, language)**

**Pairings:Dean/Alastair, Dean/Castiel**

**Disclaimer:Don't own**

**Summary:AU of S4. Dean comes back from hell with something extra.**

**Warnings: Violence, torture, sensuality, body horror(mpreg, sort of)**

The Devil's Water it Ain't So Sweet (You Don't Have to Drink Right Now)

For one long moment, after he wakes up gasping in heated darkness, Dean thinks he's on the rack again, Alastair grinning up at him. But he doesn't sleep in hell and he doesn't breathe. In hell he can't smell too warm, stale air, the metallic, heavy smell of dirt, the crushing weight of his own desperate panic piling high on his chest. He can't move when he tries to flex, stretch his arms out past his sides.

Sun warms his skin for the first time in four months, bright, yellow hot and humid. Hell is wet, burning heat; blood drenched mist, the taste of salt and copper when he speaks, opens his mouth wide to laugh. Out here in the real world there's grass and trees and a wide, blue sky, grit beneath his fingernails, the soft, cool tickle of the afternoon breeze in his short hair. Life is suddenly corporeal, composed of the tangible; ground beneath his feet, the slow burn of movement in his muscles. He is safe and he is alive and he has no idea why.

He quickly remembers that living has its drawbacks. He sweats rivers in the hot afternoon sun, the back of his t-shirt damp and clinging to the small of his back; wet around his neck. In hell there's no need for food or water, but out in the open, sun beating down on his bare arms and face. He's going to have one hell of a sunburn in the morning, if he makes it to morning, at the moment he feels like he might just shrivel up into a withered husk of himself and die, turn into a shell o'Dean that crumbles to dust on the side of the highway.

Water tastes better than beer, better than pie, like sex and steak and whiskey rolled into one, soothing away the dry ache in his throat. Technically he's committing some serious B&E, not to mention theft, and normally he'd be getting some cheap thrills out of it, spitting a mouthful of water playfully at Sam. The thought of Sam makes it difficult to swallow down half a candy bar, caramel and peanuts sticking to his teeth. Food is freakin' orgasmic and his stomach lets out a hungry gurgle as soon as he lets the Snickers wrapper flutter to the floor.

Dean stops breathing, unbridled, bone crushing terror washing over him in dizzying waves. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckingfuck hell was real and hell wasn't a dream and what happened down there was unbearably, painfully veritable. Alastair's sweat is on his skin again, tongue shoved past the inside of his teeth, flicking his uvula back and forth, his gag reflex trembling warm. The candy and water comes back up and out, long strings of saliva and abject grief dribbling down his chin as he coughs and spits. His hands shudder and shake, abdominal muscles quivering. In the mirror his stomach is flat, lean and golden, defined lines of muscle but when he turns to the side the area below his navel is slightly rounded, a nearly unnoticeable bump protruding. It looks like he has a weird tumor growing from his belly and he's willing to accept a tumor or cancer or hell a parasite from eating too many undercooked hamburgers in greasy rundown diners with hot waitresses and bald, middle aged chef sweating over a steaming grill. He'll take giant blood sucking worms over what it might be, what every cell in his brain tells him it is. The rules of hell might not apply to reality but this is something that clearly can defy the laws of biology. He needs to fix this right fucking _now_, after he finds Sam. He gives the hard, knot of something in his stomach one last suspicious look and pulls his shirt down.

He can always throw himself down a flight of stairs once he's sure his brother is safe.

* * *

Sam's hug is bone crushing familiarity.

It's Lucky Charms on Saturday morning, watching cartoons with Sam in bed.

It's stepping off the rack, broken and battered, dealing pain like poker chips until he puts himself together piece by piece.

Hugging Sam is right and warm and it helps him breathe a little easier, relaxes the knot forming between his shoulder blades.

"What the fuck did you do?" Is his first question, the closest he can come to asking _why_. He was dead, gone and buried, torn apart and broken, and now he's back and inside he's still in thousands of pieces; a window pane shattered into shards of glass. "What did you do Sammy? What did you fucking do?" Sam's brought him back from hell and there's a good chance Dean's brought something else along with him. Something evil wrapped up in his intestines.

"I didn't do anything Dean. I wish I had." Sam's still holding him close and he rests his face against the warm crook of Dean's neck like he did when he was a child, when he was young and normal sized.

"Okay sasquatch, enough of the girly shit." He moves away from Sam before he can feel the hard lump of his belly, the bump where he used to be smooth. "You really didn't do anything? No deals with demons?"

"No." Sam puts a giant hand on each of his arms. "Just sit down for a minute. I ordered pizza." The thought of gooey cheese and tangy sauce has him salivating, drooling in his mouth like a dog.

"I'm gonna go get a room; I'll leave you boys alone for a while." Bobby tips his cap and disappears out the motel room door.

"Beer?" Sam offers him a frosty bottle, beads of water glisten on the pale green glass.

"God yes." He was wrong, water doesn't taste better than beer, it doesn't even come close. Something in the back of his mind tugs at his hand and the muscles in his right arm tense and lock, bottle stopping halfway to his mouth for his second swallow.

"How are you?" Sam sets a box of pizza on the bed beside him; he catches a whiff of it and his stomach does a three sixty.

"I'm fine Sammy. Are you planning on asking me any other ridiculous questions?" He digs into the food with a false enthusiasm, gleaming grease and red sauce on his fingertips.

"Don't be a jerk." Sam picks an olive off his slice of pizza, pops it directly into his mouth.

"Don't be a whiny little bitch." His laugh reverberates through his body, feels hollow inside his bones.

"I missed you Dean." Sam says to him later while they lie side by side in bed, pizza box between them. "I don't care how you got out of hell, I'm just glad you're back."

"Me too." The world doesn't smell like death anymore, no sulfur, decomposing flesh, and blood, invisible flames licking up and causing heat, burning the bottoms of his feet black, toes and flesh crumbling away as charred ashes.

"What was it like?"

"Coming back to life? I don't know. I had to crawl outta my own grave, that's something for the memoirs."

"No." Sam lowers his voice to soft, sorry sound and opens another beer with a hiss of escaping air and carbonation. "What was hell like Dean?"

"I don't remember. Last thing I remember is getting torn up by hellhounds, then waking up in the dark." Sam doesn't need or want to know what hell is like. No amount of gory descriptions or bloody scenes from movies can do the place justice. Hell isn't a lake of fire with some guy in a red robe with goat horns and feet poking you with a stick while you burn. Hell is demons with sharp toys and sadistic imaginations carving you away until you're reshaped in their image. "By the way, next time I die, if you aren't going to burn me, get me a classy coffin with pillows or cushions or something. It was not comfortable in that box."

"Okay Dean, I'll get right on that."

* * *

"_Mm. Such a good boy today." Alastair licks his hands clean of blood, traces the lines of his palm with his tongue, swirls it and leaves saliva in the spaces between his fingers. "You're such a good boy for me Deano." Alastair bites down on his thumb hard enough to draw blood, sucks it away hard, pulling at Dean's skin with his teeth. "You're so pretty when you make souls scream."_

"_I thought I was always pretty." He smiles, cleaning his blade with a fistful of a soul's hair._

"_Of course you are Dean." Alastair runs hands along his sides, digs fingers in his hips hard enough to bruise, bend bone and coax up blood. "My Dean who is so soft and pretty." Alastair grinds between his thighs, hard, hot and heavy cock slipping against his skin, burrowing in the hollow created when he presses his legs together, lets Alastair fuck between them. "You've been so good for me Dean." These days he's off the rack and instead of pain there is only pleasure. There is pain but he's come to enjoy this pain, the stretch and burn of it. There are distractions even down here in the pit and the steady, maddening pulses of Alastair moving behind him is one.  
_

"_Harder." He grunts, falling to his knees when Alastair shoves him down, balancing on his elbows with his ass in the air. Alastair fucks him while greedy noises sound through his clenched teeth. _

"_Sure thing Deano." Alastair doesn't move harder, he slows to soft, gentle pushes, feeding the fire burning low in Dean's stomach. "Whatever you want, if you're a good boy."_

"_I'm good, I'm good." He's so goddamn good. He gives Alastair anything and everything, the flesh he carves away from shuddering souls, the few remaining scraps of his humanity. Now he likes to hurt and he likes to be hurt and he hurts for Alastair. Alastair is his God and his devil, what Alastair gives him he can take away. He'll do anything to stay off the rack, torture a thousand, million souls, toss babies into the fires of hell if he just never has to go back to the rack. He's a demon and a good demon at that. He knows how to make people scream and there is no sound in existence he loves to hear more than the piercing, pain filled pleas of souls. "C'mon, fuck me, make me bleed." He squeezes his muscles around Alastair, clenches tight like he's been trained. _

"_Nice." Alastair tips his head back, fingers gripping the bones of Dean's pelvis. Alastair's gone through his skin and he didn't notice. "You wanna do something for me Dean? Make papa proud?" Alastair scrapes his bones with his fingernails, taps against them in an unfamiliar beat. "Ba da da da dum." Alastair hums, tapping a beat that vibrates down his femur. _

"_Do what?" Alastair fucks him so shallow it hurts and his cock twitches and throbs in protest. _

"_Carry my progeny Dean." Alastair puts a palm flat on his belly, damp with blood and searing hot. "Let my little Alastair grow inside you." Alastair snaps the right part of his pelvis; it sends a rush of orgasmic pain to his cock, curling his bare toes. "Having my baby….what a better way to say…"_

"_I'll do it." He moans, and in another life he might have been happy at the prospect of something with fat cheeks and a pink, gurgling mouth always stuffed full of its own little fingers and toes. He knows what to expect here and he can see the inch long claws gleaming with blood in the moonlight and the chitter of sharp teeth.  
_

"_Our boy is going to be so powerful Dean." Alastair pounds into him, the sound of sweat slicked skin slapping against blood soaked flesh. "The day he rises to earth, the sky will echo with the screams of the innocent and water will run red with blood."_

_

* * *

_

He brews his morning coffee with holy water, swallows it down fresh from the pot. He waits for some kind of agony, a spasm within himself, and yet there is nothing, only the rustle of Sam tossing and turning between his sheets.

"How ya feelin' boy?" Bobby clasps him warmly on the shoulder.

"Great." The McDonalds bag Bobby gives him is cold, McMuffin damp from condensation. "Is there syrup in the bread?" His stomach flip flops, churning sickly hot and bittersweet.

"Course, I know what you like. Wake your brother up, we're meetin' Pamela in an hour."

"She's the psychic chick right?" He chews and chews and chews but can't force himself to swallow. Stale pancake, cold syrup, and artificial cheese taste like crap when a man isn't accustomed to the shitty aspects of American cuisine. He's genuinely concerned the sandwich may give him instant diabetes and kill him, send him right back to hell in the course of an afternoon. What he really wants is buttery pie crust and fresh peach filling, made from fruit picked right off the tree, maybe some creamy vanilla bean ice cream melting on the side.

"Yup."

The Pamela chick is kinda hot. She's got an ass he'd like to use as bongo drums, tight and firm looking in her jeans. She's sharp too, smart, but not a know it all bitch like Missouri. She doesn't smack him for admiring the jiggle of her breasts.

"I know your secret." She leans into him and whispers, breathe misting across his ear.

"Dunno what you're talking about sweetheart." He stretches out and puts his feet up on the coffee table.

"Contrary to what you might believe, you can't lie to a psychic and get away with it." She settles her eyes on the small rise of his stomach; he feels like his mind is being raped. Friggin' psychics. "You wanna talk about it?"

"Are we going to braid each other's hair after and giggle about boys?" He's Dean, he doesn't talk. He bottles his feelings up and swallows them down, stores them low in the bottom of his soul where they itch at his consciousness and congeal somewhere inside himself. It's what he was taught, how he was goddamn raised. It's the manly way to live.

"Smartass."

"Yeah well, it's part of my charm." He puts his hands over the bulge above his belly button, lays his palms flat and _thinks_. About Alastair and hell and his own shortcomings. Blood under his nails and in his hair, crusted to his body in a fine, hard layer of fresh skin, so thick he's perpetually bathed in the blood of the blameless. He scrubs and he scrubs and his flesh chafes and bleeds, rubbed raw and pink beneath his clothes. Life takes more adjustment than death and the perverse darkness snuggled around his coccyx craves the simplicity of hell. "Do you know if it's…"

"Oh something is there." She gives him a look of complete sympathy, like she can't imagine a worse fate, like he's doomed to a new hell that exists above the ground.

"Demon? Half demon? Human?" She stares straight ahead at a dusty painting on the wall, a bowl of fruit painted in fading colors, dull yellow bananas and apples that are a light, pale pink. "Monkey? Throw me a bone here."

"I don't know. It's….it's nothing right now. I don't sense good, but I don't sense evil. It just _is_. I can't put it into better words for you."

"Do you think I could get an abortion if I put on a wig and stuffed some oranges down my shirt?" He's let the idea flitter around in his brain the past few hours, late at night on his back in the motel.

"You're lacking some vital equipment for an abortion Dean."

"I thought they cut it out?"

"No. More like vacuum it out."

"Ugh." His stomach twitches.

"Did you try holy water?"

"I drank a crapload this morning. I'll be pissing holy water for a week."

"When we figure out what dragged you out of hell, we'll convince it to take _that_ back."

Thirty seven minutes later, Pamela's eyes and his hope burn away with a yellow burst of incandescent light.

* * *

Some serious demon mojo goes off when the lights above him flicker and explode; raining down a white shower of fiery sparks, illuminating the darkness with their dying light. The doors burst open on their own and he clutches the handle of Ruby's knife like it can protect him from the world, like it's his one and only lifeline. Maybe it is, hell, it is, it can kill any goddamn motherfucker he wants it to. He could stick it right into the soft, unprotected flesh of his belly and twirl it around, collect his entrails around the blade like a fork wrapped up in spaghetti. This Castiel guy is dead in three seconds. One to thank him for taking him away from Alastair, back to his brother and the land of the living, cable TV and internet porn. Another second to stab the knife into Castiel's heart; blood gushing onto his palm, and a final second to watch Castiel bleed. Facial expressions vary with death and he imagines Castiel will die with eyes wide open, corners of his mouth turned up in a smug, cruel smirk that says _I know what's inside you Deano, and Alastair wants it back_.

Castiel doesn't look like an all powerful demon. He's not a small guy, about Dean's height, wearing some trench coat out of a bad cop movie from the sixties, the kind middle aged weirdoes wear before they flash unsuspecting women and children at the park. But Castiel doesn't have candy in his pocket and he's sure as hell dressed beneath the coat. He has big blue eyes that feel as though they're reading the inside of Dean's soul, the secrets carved deep in his skull, locked away where no one can find them.

"Who the hell are you?" He demands after his knife goes in like butter, comes out of Castiel's chest just as easily, one slick slip of steel out of bone and muscle. Bastard doesn't even flinch, blood pooling on his stupid pedo trench coat.

"I'm Castiel, an angel of the Lord." A flash of lightning and the silhouette of wings on the back wall, outlined in black, the shadow of bird wings, long, elegant feathers stretching from Castiel's back.

"An angel?" He hasn't believed in angels since he was four and his mother told him while she cleaned the scrape on his knee that an angel was watching over him. She'd put a girly pink Band-Aid on his cut and kissed his cheek, smelling pretty, of flowers and candy and maybe a little of his pretty pre-school teacher. Then three and a half weeks later his house burned down and he learned that angels and protection were just lies.

"Yes Dean. I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition. You bear my mark on your shoulder as testament to my power."

"You did that to me?" The ugly mark on his skin tingles, pins and needles sensation running down his arm. "I can never wear a sleeveless shirt again." If Castiel really is an angel (which he doubts, angels are supposed to glow and float around like fairies with magical halos and harps or something equally gay) he has a crappy sense of humor. "Why would an angel want to save me?" He is the poster boy for the dead and the damned, the dirty and the sinful. He's lust and gluttony incarnate, he drinks and he swears and he fucks, he's addicted to the pleasures of the flesh. He's not exactly the type of person worth saving.

"Because God commanded it Dean." Shit the bastard is serious.

"God? Even if God did exist, he certainly doesn't give a damn about me." Castiel tilts his head awkwardly to the side, his ear almost touching his shoulder.

"You don't believe you deserve to be saved." He knows he doesn't, because his last ten years in hell tell him so. He can hear Alastair's voice whispering between his ears, feather soft, the flutter of moth and butterfly wings. _Good, __**good**_ Alastair rumbles into the back of his neck, hand curling around his wrist, guiding his hand and his blade. He is not a man worthy of salvation. Hell was his home and for ten years he reaped all it had to offer. Hell was his first and real home, dark and sordid and evil, but for ten fucking years he huddled against Alastair at night, the screams and whimpers of tortured souls lulling him to sleep; the sweetest bedtime melody.

"There are better people in the world. Ones who take care of orphans and feed the hungry. Go resurrect mother Theresa."

"Mother Theresa did her work already Dean. Now she is enjoying her eternal reward in paradise."

"Is that what you brought me back for? To work for you?" He isn't anyone's bitch, not anymore. He broke once and he is never, never going to break again. He's patched himself up with gum and glue and tape and it's going to take more than an angel in a pervy trench coat to undo him. "I'm not a bible thumper."

"You misunderstand my Father's intentions."

If by some small chance God really does exist, isn't an imagined white haired old man in the sky, he has to know how badly he's fucked up.

* * *

He reads online that for safe and healthy development a pregnant woman is supposed to eat right, quit alcohol, and get enough rest. He does the opposite. He skips his three squares a day in favor of an all liquid diet, the occasional handful of junk food to settle his stomach when it growls. After three days he drinks himself sick and spends the morning in the bathroom, bile burning his throat on the way up. Sam stands over him, bitchface reflected in the mirror, arms folded angrily across his chest, watching as he coughs up alcohol and chocolate, the little marshmallow things that taste like ass going down and worse coming up.

"I know you're happy to be alive again Dean, but Jesus show some restraint. You're going to kill yourself."

"I'm not trying to kill myself." He mutters, mouth moving against the cool porcelain rim of the toilet. He licks his lips, tastes the bitter and the sick of them; his newest failure.

_I'm trying to kill what's inside me_ he thinks, standing wearily on his feet.

* * *

In the past he can relax. He doesn't exist now when his parents are young, his dad carefree like he's never seen. His dad had hugged him before bed in the days his mom was still alive, tucked him in beneath his blue and red Superman sheets, but his eyes were far off and distant, in the jungles of Vietnam, the bedroom next door with his mother and Sammy. Here he's Dean Van Halen, one cool son of a bitch with a crappy car and a hint of a belly, still the sexiest thing for miles.

Eating dinner with his mother and his grandparents rattles him, a vertebrae deep rattle that makes his marrow quiver. It feels wrong. He's imposing on long forgotten happiness he will never be a part of, happiness he clearly wasn't meant to have. His grandmother, Deanna, the one he's named after, cooks a mean pot roast, complete with fluffy, buttery mashed potatoes, hot, fresh baked rolls and crisp corn on the cob. He eats two helpings, is contemplating a third, but there's an uncomfortable flutter in his gut. For a second he's convinced it's passing indigestion except the butterflies in his stomach feeling continues and his fork falls to the plate with a clatter. The friggin' demon is _moving_ and every nerve in his body blazes in disgust.

"Dean." His grandmother waves a hand in front of his face. "Dean."

"Yes?"

"Would you like a slice of peach cobbler?"

"Yes ma'am."

"I'll get you a piece." Deanna walks off into the kitchen, and Dean can see a little of his mother in her purposeful strides.

"We're going after Azazel tonight, right Samuel?"

"Change of plans Dean." His grandfather growls, eyes rolling back into his head, yellow where they should be white.

"Shit."

"So you know me kiddo?" Azazel turns his grandfather's eyes yellow again, gives a playful smile with his grandfather's teeth.

"We go way back Azazel. Well, forward."

"Hm, first name basis. We must be close. You trying to keep me away from your mommy Dean? Are you one of my special kids?" Azazel leans in and _goddamn_ he is Alastair incarnate. "No, you're not. But you must have a little sister, maybe a little brother?" Azazel kisses him abruptly, slides his grandfather's tongue in past his teeth, withdraws it quickly as though he's been burned. "You taste like hell." Azazel sniffs him, drags his tongue across his lips, licks a wet line down his jaw, laps at the sweat forming on his skin. "No, you taste like Alastair. You spent time with him."

"Forty years." He shrugs it off, stares nonchalantly into Azazel's yellow eyes. "It was fun."

"I know the kind of fun Alastair has." Azazel presses flush against him, the scent of sulfur and blood. Azazel's hand slides beneath his t-shirt, drags across his stomach, stops and jiggles it, head cocked to the side in interest. "Well, I should bring Alastair a box of cigars next time I'm in hell. It's not every day a friend of mine is going to be a father."

"Shut up." The colt is safely tucked in his belt, cool against his left hip.

"Maybe I could bring you to him now. I'm sure he'd be delighted to find out about his future family. How'd he get you to agree with it Dean? Did he tell you he loved you? Did he act domestic with you? Shower you with love and kisses, play to the human in you?" He turns away, ears burning in weakness. The day he stepped down off the rack Alastair held him, smoothed hands down his bare back, wiped the blood and the tears from him. _You're gonna be just fine now Deano_ Alastair pressed a kiss to his temple, showing more affection than Dean had ever known. "Alastair's the best at what he does. If he'd leave hell he could do horrific things up here, terrible, amazing things. He could help us set the world on fire."

"He's pretty dedicated to his work down there. Not a chance in, pardon the pun, hell he'd want to go."

"It's a shame." Azazel backhands him, twists his arm back and takes the colt from his hand as he tries to pull it out in secret. "I was going to have some familiar fun with you before I killed you, but now I can't." Azazel's, no, Samuel's face, contorts in disappointment. "It wouldn't be right of me to harm a poor little unborn demon, I have a heart."

"I know you do fucker, I put a bullet through it in the future." Azazel's mouth twists into a vicious smirk.

"I'll be back for you Dean." Azazel tells him, slams his skull into the wall of his mother's childhood home. Azazel has a flaw where Alastair doesn't. Azazel underestimates him, leaves him bleeding and semi-conscious, preoccupied with finding his parents. Alastair knows humans aren't always easy to break, he knows where to put pressure, where to poke and where to prod. Alastair wouldn't leave him blinking, blood slowly trickling down the nape of his neck.

His vision is hazy and glazed over, blurred with pain, the possible concussion. It's not exactly in his best interest to drive but the car he has right now is a piece of crap and if he totals it he could care less. His baby's safe with his parents, where they're probably making out in the back seat, doing the dirty where he'll feed Sam French fries at two in the morning, let his pudgy little brother suck on his pinky finger to keep from crying. He drives with fresh optimism Castiel gave him. He's here to stop this and he's going to _stop_ this and maybe he won't carry a constant reminder of Alastair directly below his bellybutton.

"You were never meant to alter the past Dean." Castiel comforts him, a hand on his shoulder, but no amount of comforting in the world can scrub the image of his grandfather's tongue down his mother's throat, ease the pain of yet another fucking failure in the life of Dean Winchester.

* * *

His nightmares aren't always about hell. He dreams in blurry pieces, scattered scenes, grainy pictures faded around the edges, torn, battered, and burned in the corners. They feel like snapshots from another time, poor quality home movies, but so visceral and _real_ there are moments when he shivers himself awake in the darkness that he can't discern reality from his own fucked up subconscious.

_Dad is sitting at the foot of his bed, a sawed off shotgun in his lap. _

"_I can't believe you Dean."Dad says, not angry, not disappointed, because if there's one thing he can do right in the entire goddamn world, it's be the biggest disappointment his father has ever known. "__**This**__?"Dad jerks the gun at his stomach, fingers twitching like he wants to pull the trigger, like he knows Dean deserves it. _

"_I'm sorry." There is no proper apology brewing on his tongue, no words arranging in the back of his throat. There is no making it better and the look in Dad's eyes is the one Dean has memorized, the spark that fuels the smoldering fire of self-loathing in his soul. _

"_Don't you name that thing after me. Even if by some miracle it comes out human."_

"_Never." It is made from Alastair, made of Alastair, and it belongs to Alastair, a small and insignificant part of the demon locked temporarily inside him. _

"_I wish I hadn't sold my soul for you." Dad doesn't sugar coat it, doesn't try and make it better, because he isn't Sam, so he isn't worth it. _

"_Me too Dad." _

_An extra two hundred and forty years in hell would be easier to bear._

_

* * *

_

"You're not real." He wipes a hand across his eyes, swallowing against the rapid beating of his heart, the painful thud against his ribs. It hurts to sit, to think, to _breathe_, a sharp stabbing in the center of his chest. He's hurt worse and somehow he feels no fear. His vision blurs and Lilith is a set of blurs, blonde hair and those big blue eyes. She's one of the cutest kids he's seen and so Children of the Corn and Village of the Damned that he's going to be wary of blond children for life. He's going to die for the third or fourth or whatever time and he is perfectly content. This is the way the world ends he thinks, Lilith's toothless, crooked, sickly adorable smile dancing in his sight. This is the way the world ends, he's certain, with the feral beating of his own heart and panting breaths.

"Of course I am silly." Lilith giggles, friggin' poster child for innocence incarnate, all sweetness and kittens and rainbows on the outside, sugar and spice and the shit little girls are made of. "You don't look good Dean. You're a little chubby." Lilith's small, bare feet poke out of the bottom of her pink satin dress, little toes curling into the carpet as she walks towards him, the light, carefree skip of a school girl. "The stork paid you a visit huh Dean?"

His heart spasms, lurches in agony, erratic trembling of the muscles.

"Go away."

"Nuh uh silly goose! I'm here to play with you. I brought a friend with me." A head rush leaves him briefly disoriented, tears stinging in the corners of his eyes. A little boy has materialized from thin air; he stands solemnly beside Lilith, sucking on his thumb, dressed in black and grey batman pajamas. The toddler has big green eyes, chubby cheeks and freckles, messy brown hair, pink lips sucking furiously around his tiny thumb.

"Cute. You demons sure know how to make yourselves adorable." The little boy approaches him, green eyes rolling back into his head, glowing white just like Lilith's, just like Alastair's. It's growing steadily more difficult to breathe, gulp down air and struggle against the heaviness crushing him below his skin and bone. Heart attacks are worse than people let on; Cheney made his eight look easy.

"Aw, don't you recognize him Dean?" Lilith sing-songs, kneeling down beside him, poking at his stomach with her index finger. "You're not a very good daddy."

"You're lying." He gasps, clutching at the center of his chest, rubbing his palm wearily against it, like he can soothe the incipient death from it; draw the misery out of his heart. "That fucking thing" He nods at his abdomen, where Lilith continues to prod him happily, finger pressing too deep into his belly. "is going to die when I do."

"No it isn't Deanie, don't you know anything? He's going to be okey-dokey. He'll be born in hell silly billy." Lilith pets the demon boy's hair affectionately, in a convincing parody of intimacy; a doting sister fawning over her baby brother. "I always wanted a little brother. I'm going to teach him how to do everything Dean. He's going to help me destroy the world; you and Alastair are going to be so proud of him. He'll be the bestest son ever."

"Shut the fuck up Lilith and let me die in peace."

"That's a naughty word Dean. Your mommy is gonna wash your mouth out with soap." Lilith presses her forehead to the child's, they laugh together, delighting in a shared secret. "You don't have a mommy; she's dead, dead, dead, dead. Just like your daddy. Just like you're gonna be Dean. You're gonna be dead and Alastair is going to be so happy to see you again Dean. He loves you very, very much." The boy, the cute, perfect little boy, who has his eyes and his cheeks and his mouth, the same spatter of freckles across his nose and cheeks, the jaw line and dimples of a Winchester, removes his thumb from his mouth with a wet pop.

"Fuck off." He groans, shuddering as he hurts deep, as bad as any torture on the rack from Alastair.

"Ba boom! Ba boom! Ba boom!" Lilith chants, moving her hands for emphasis. "Ba boom! Listen to your heart Dean! Ba boom! You're dying Dean." He is dying, dying, dying, _dying_, heart ready to explode inside his chest, burst open in a splash of blood.

"Night night daddy." The boy, _his_ boy, whispers, warm, soft little hand settling on his cheek, stroking back and forth. "Night night." The tiny hand is comfort, welcoming him back into hell where Alastair is waiting for him with open arms, knives held in his outstretched hands.

He closes his eyes, opens them, and he's alone again, only a faint, lingering tightness beneath his sternum.

* * *

"Tell me something Cas." He sits with his hands on his knees, the warmth of his palms seeping through the thin layer of denim in his jeans, his fingers curling into his kneecaps, trying to dig in and latch onto the bone for safety; anchor him to something in this messed up, instable world.

"Anything Dean." Castiel watches two children play on the swing set; a boy and a girl, both bright eyed and happy, their hands clasped tightly as they swing side by side. The girl kicks her pink sneakered feet in an attempt to go higher, her elated laugh lost in the wind, blonde pigtails bobbing back and forth. The boy doesn't make a sound, only smiles up to the ice blue sky; fingers meshed together with the girl's, their swings moving in tandem, one perfect synchronized beating of the world's heart.

"You're like my guardian angel or something right?" He can't see Cas as anything other than _his_ angel, other than the being that pulled him from the abyss of hell, the darkest shadows of his own soul. Castiel freed him and put him back together, piece by piece, bone by bone, Cas made him into a man again, with nothing more than angelic will and eternal patience, forgiveness for the things he doesn't deserve, the unconditional love of an angel for humanity, the dirty, sinful thing it is.

"I am an angel of the Lord Dean. I don't belong to you, not entirely. I will help you, I will watch over you, and I have done so since the beginning of time."

"So you're my angel stalker?" The idea of Castiel watching every moment of his life is creepy, and it makes him feel embarrassed, like he needs to apologize for all the shit he's ever done, all that Castiel has had to see; his nakedness every time he showers, every girl he's fucked, the time he threw up into his own lap to keep from getting sick on the Impala, riding for two miles until Dad found a rest stop and pulled over.

"If that's how you want to think of it. Is that your question?" The ends of Castiel's trench coat flutter in the breeze, rustling beneath the park bench, flapping; the tiny wings of an invisible angel.

"No." There are some things too difficult to say, because to form the words somehow makes it real, solidifies a secret into something concrete, something he can't will away and pretend doesn't exist. Once he says it there is no going back, and Castiel will know. Castiel threatened to send him to hell and he's half afraid that now he'll follow through with his threat, cast him below the earth where Alastair is waiting. His stomach is a persistent press against the waistband of his jeans, too tight when he tries to do the button, suck in his stomach all hours of the day, his shirts a size too big and baggy. "Just for the sake of asking, do you read my mind whenever we talk?" No one, especially an angel should have to see what goes on inside his head. There are too many nooks and crannies, too many atrocities sitting in the space between his ears.

"You assume your thoughts are private. I try to respect that." The two children on the swings jump off, still holding hands, flying feet first through the air, they land together in the sand.

"Thanks. I guess." He is thankful, in so many, many ways. Castiel got him out of hell, a little unwanted mind reading is a small price to pay, it's a price he's willing to pay, willing like he was willing to give up his soul. "When I was in hell…" His throat closes up, goes tight and heavy, tongue sticking dryly to the roof of his mouth. "I did things I'm not proud of. I did things I hate myself for." He's not new to the overwhelming self-hatred, to the realization of his own worthlessness. If he even had a modicum of value for his life to begin with, it's long gone now, somewhere down in negative numbers, those fucking imaginary integers he's heard Sam ramble on about.

"I know Dean." Castiel exhales with a whisper, hands folded neatly in his lap, eyes fixed on the little blonde girl and boy, where they sit on the playground, trying to build a sandcastle out of dry sand and failing. "It's rather obvious."

"Really?"

A smile twitches at the corners of Castiel's lips.

"No Dean, I read your mind." Castiel sorta made a goddamn joke; the world might actually be on its way to ending.

"You sly bastard." He laughs, laughing to rid himself of the tension, the heated coils in his muscles, the sick flutter in his stomach, where he feels too hot and queasy. "Can you take care of it for me? Angel it out?"

"I can't." Castiel's fingers twitch against his pants, shoulders slumping as he leans forward, apologetic all over, with every inch of his borrowed skin.

"Dude, it's not a baby, it's a demon, just kill it." He wants it gone, wants it out, away and dead and burning in hell with Alastair where it belongs. "Zap it out with your angel mojo." He'll lie back and press his palms into the dirt, leave himself exposed and open, let Castiel cut open his stomach with Ruby's knife if he will promise to take it _away_. "Will it work if I pray it away? 'Cause I'll do it."

"There is nothing I can do. There's no guarantee it isn't human."

"You can't go pro-lifer on me now, Cas. I know you think all babies are precious, but this isn't something precious. I can feel it. It's bad. It's evil; it's a fucking demon living inside me."

"I'm sorry." Castiel repeats, looking like a forlorn puppy.

On the playground, a little girl with brown braids and a jump rope in each hand runs up to the blond kids. She shouts something, smiling, pokes her tongue through the gap where her front teeth used to be, and the blonde girl darts off with her.

The boy tosses a handful of sand into the air dejectedly.

* * *

"_What_?" Sam gapes at him, disgust forming long, ugly wrinkles in his forehead, horrified creases at the sides of his mouth. "You're fucking with me." Sam stares at him like he's something evil, something foreign, something inhuman. He isn't inhuman, he's still Dean, his soul is still identifiably Dean. He's the only person he's ever been for almost thirty years, just a bit broken, a little less whole and a hell of a lot more damaged.

"I wish I was fucking with you. At this point, I wish I was just getting fat. I'd give anything for a beer belly."

"No Dean, you're not…" Sam crosses the five feet between them in two steps, two of his normal, giant sized steps.

"I can't believe you didn't notice." They're not how they used to be and he can recognize it, and maybe that puts them half way to reconciliation, because you have to acknowledge a problem before you can fix it, or some shit like that. He puts a hand on the hem of his t-shirt and lifts it up, goose bumps rising on his skin.

"Holy shit." He's not so fit and trim these days, he's lost all the muscle, about five percent of his sexiness. To anyone who doesn't know, which is everyone, because demon spawn really isn't a plausible excuse for weight gain up above the ground, he's a guy who's eaten a few too many burgers, drunk too much beer, maybe has a tumor growing in his abdominal cavity. "Dude, this is impossible. You need to spend some time on the treadmill."

"I tried. Man I've been running ten miles every morning. I ate low calorie food for like three days."

"This isn't funny Dean. What if it's eating your soul or something? It could be draining your energy or eating parts of you. What if it eats one of your kidneys?"

"Then you're giving me yours bitch."

"I'm not joking. I'm…..god, Dean." Sam hugs him, one arm warm around the back of his neck. "I'm so sorry." Sam curves fingers into the base of his neck, strokes them softly over bump where his neck meets his spine. Sam thinks some demon violated him, raped him while he writhed on the rack, and for a long time that was true. For years Alastair climbed up and fucked him, fucked him bloody, fucked him raw, tore him up worse than anyone can fathom, until he didn't have an _inside_ anymore, only loose, bloody muscle, tatters of his organs leaking down his thighs. "You could have told me about this."

"I know." He swallows, gulping down the truth, the feel of his knees around Alastair's hips, riding him like a thoroughbred, his blood and Alastair's blood and souls' blood easing the way. "A guy has to have some secrets Sam."

"Not ones like this."

* * *

Something inside him breaks, cracks free and shatters, glass on pristine marble floor, crunching beneath the demon's feet as he approaches. He's going to die and return to hell and the darkest corner of his brain, the pool of black poison in his heart wills him not to move. When he dies it ends, a blissful, merciful ending, cutting the tragic tale that is his fucked up life short; an unfinished horror story without the bloodbath of an ending. This demon has mojo coming out of his ass and he's so, _so_ powerful, smirking while the statue in the corner sobs blood, red leaking from the white holes that are its eyes.

"Hey there Deano." He purrs, a cheerful smile, stolen muscles and borrowed skin stretched tight, white teeth exposed and glistening, saliva reflecting light. "You don't recognize me? Oh right, I'm wearing a pediatrician. We were so close, in hell." He knows exactly who this man is, there's no way he could forget, and the blackness in his chest squirms in glee, heart making confusing, unwanted summersaults.

"Alastair." One word, three syllables rolling off his tongue, death and pain and agony combined into one, evil incarnate, evil so deep and so raw there is no word he can associate with it other than _Alastair_. Because to him Alastair means a knife in his stomach, removing his organs one by one, piece by piece. Alastair is sharpening a blade on both sides, peeling his skin off layer by layer, then fucking him with the weapon until it goes dull, until he's nothing but a sloppy, quivering wetness. Alastair is everything in the world that terrifies him, that can make him scream, and Alastair knows it. Alastair is what children hide from at night, nestled deep beneath their blankets. Alastair is the boogey man and the cucuy, what would happen if all the monsters in the world got together and fucked.

"I've been looking for you." He can't see Sam; can barely breathe, pressed up against a pillar, Alastair's hands lovingly tightening around his neck. The tips of his fingers form a necklace on his skin, a string of bruises, pressing hard, breaking blood vessels beneath the skin. Alastair will kill him and this is how it should be, his life, quite literally, in Alastair's hands, his to control, just like it was for longer than Dean's been alive on the earth. "How's our little boy?" Alastair reaches down, pets him, touches the heated skin of his stomach and nuzzles his mouth up near Dean's ear. "I was so sad to see you go Dean, you took something precious from me."

"You can have it back. Take it right the fuck now." He waits for it, the burning, sickening explosion of pain, Alastair's bare hand working past layers of his muscle, through each sheet of his flesh, clawing through the tissues that make up his organs, taking what belongs to him by force, blood covering his hand past the wrist.

"In time Dean, in time. You still have over four months to go, patience Deano, patience." Alastair gives his neck one last, fond squeeze, then lets him go and watches him breathe, watches the rapid rise and fall of his chest, listens to the desperate wheezing in his lungs. "Come now, no need to get so dramatic. You've been through worse." He has, all with Alastair, at Alastair's hands, at his mercy, at his every whim and sadistic fantasy. Long, long days in hell he and Alastair played, each wound a move of an imaginary chest piece, the throw of an invisible ball.

"I hate you." Simple, open, as honest as he's ever been, his opinion open and exposed, metaphorical throat bared.

"Of course you do." Alastair whispers, licking over one of the bruises appearing on his neck, a flick of hot wetness near his collarbone. "This would be too easy if you didn't. I like it when you play hard to get. Thirty years you kept me waiting Dean, this time will be quicker." Maybe it will, hell, he knows it will, there's barely enough of his soul left to break, and Alastair knows where his cracks are, where to apply the right pressure, where to poke rather than push. He folded for Alastair once and he'll do it again, do it in a heartbeat, but not now, not with his brother somewhere in the room. "A parting gift Dean." Alastair wrenches his arm from his socket, one rapid jerk. His mouth forms an o of agony but this is nothing compared to Alastair, only a splinter in his finger out of all the categories of pain in Dean's life.

He doesn't scream.

* * *

Sam treats him like a glass doll, something precious and cherished, as delicate as a hollowed out eggshell. He accepts the gifts of pie, late morning breakfasts, his clothes lying in a neat row on the bathroom sink after he showers. It's a distraction and he knows it, maybe compensation for the nights Sam leaves him, slips out of bed not quite as quietly as he thinks, shutting and locking the door behind him, mindful not to break the line of salt. Nearly every night he leaves and Dean lets him, because he's too tired to fight it, too preoccupied with the weight of the world on his shoulders, the weight of developing evil against his organs.

Cas pays him a visit while he's alone, watching a crappy movie on late night television, some feminist empowerment shit where a woman works her way to the top without ever needing to show her boobs or sleep with seedy men. He's eating stale, salty motel room popcorn from the bag, burnt and black at the bottom, half cooked everywhere else, solid kernels clicking against his teeth in-between smoke flavored bites.

"You should be sleeping Dean." Castiel stands beside his bed, head cocked, wearing his typical expression of bewilderment as Dean licks grains of salt from his fingers, tips the bag to empty it into his mouth.

"I can't sleep when the demon is moving." Five and a half fucking months along and the little thing's been crawling around for the last two weeks, having its own dance party in his stomach, kicking like it's going out of style. It's the same butterfly soft flutter from the night with his grandparents, only augmented, sharper and harder, a heavier feeling, more of a solid than a liquid. It's weird to think of it as solid, but it isn't the freaky looking tadpole thing it used to be, unless it's more of an octopus or a squid, possibly lobster-like, or just a miniature version of himself and Alastair, black, soulless eyes and an ugly face.

"Does it hurt?" Castiel wants to lay a hand on him; he can see it, the hesitant gleam in his eyes, the almost inaudible rustle of wings. "I can try and help you with the pain."

"It doesn't hurt, it feels weird. _Wrong_ somehow. I can't put it into better words than that." He can't put any of this into words, when he tries he gets tongue tied, even in his head the story is garbled, tangled together, different tangents weaving into an intricate tale he doesn't understand. Most times he prefers not to describe it, just let it fester, because it's easier to concentrate on the here and now when he isn't having a form of mental verbal diarrhea. "It makes me wonder where this thing is growing. It's not in my intestines is it? I won't be able to use the bathroom again if I'm afraid a demon is going to wriggle out of my large intestine."

"If it were inside your intestines they'd have ruptured by now and you'd be dead." Cas is always a cheerful son of a bitch, who needs rainbows and sunshine and sparkles when he has his own angsty brooding angel.

"Thanks for that man, it's a lovely image." Alastair's baby, not his baby, he can't call the thing his, never his, never, he wasn't Dean in hell, he was something else, something very not-Dean, kicks again with its foot or flipper or claw or whatever it has attached to its limbs. He grunts through his teeth, uncomfortable in his skin, uncomfortable by what's in his skin. "If I pull a Madame Bovary and down a couple handfuls of arsenic will you bring me back to life?"

"Of course." He pats the empty space on the mattress, urging Castiel to sit, put his angelic feet up after a hard day of angelic work. "But I would have to bring all of you back to life. I don't think I can bring most of you back. I'd prefer not to try it."

"Fair enough. Dying via rat poison doesn't sound very fun anyways, too much convulsing and bleeding. Sleeping pills though? That's the good way to go, sleeping pills and pain killers. Trust me on this; I'm an expert on dying."

"You've only truly died once." Castiel awkwardly settles down on the bed with him, without taking off his shoes or coat, looking entirely unpleased by the way he sinks into the bed.

"I'm counting the Tuesday death montage, even if I don't remember it. And I died in hell, over and over and over again." He never died the same way down there, Alastair liked to keep it fresh, hated the tedium of a routine. Alastair burnt him alive after torture once and the flames licked viciously at his skin, more painful than it should have been, but in hell his nerves didn't burn away after the first few layers of skin, so he felt it all, the sizzling of his flesh, the hiss and splintering of his bones in the heat. At the end of every day he'd die, only to materialize whole again, intact in every way, ready to be played with.

"I'm sorry I didn't reach you in time. I could have prevented this." This being his very own version of Rosemary's Baby of course, except this time it's Dean's Baby and without the dramatic climax in the end. He knows it's a demon baby, there's no secret corruption, no being dream raped by the devil, only his own evil persona's consent.

"I don't blame you Cas, I blame myself." His lips taste like salt and artificial butter; he runs his tongue over them nervously, lapping the lingering flavor away.

"I don't blame you." Castiel touches him then, a palm flat on his stomach. The seemingly constant, never ending movement ceases. "Better?"

"Thanks." He can sleep, and he will sleep, and in the morning he will pretend that Sam never left him, and his brother will do the same.

"I'll let you rest."

"No." He finds the sleeve of Castiel's coat in the dark, only the flicker of the TV giving off a faint white light. "Stay with me, in case it wakes back up." Cas doesn't respond, but he doesn't angel away.

His head lolls against Castiel's shoulder in his sleep, after he loses the battle to hold it up, and later he's disturbed from his sleep by Castiel's hands cradling the back of his head, guiding it down to the pillow before the angel disappears.

* * *

_He dreams of oceans. He's lying on his back, rocked and cradled, held by the liquid arms, the sun shining warm across his skin. He dreams and for once it's peaceful, the sound of seagulls cawing in the blue blue sky, the hiss of the afternoon breeze across water. _

_Something brushes against his back, heavy and solid, thin as it skims the length of his spine. It bumps him again, and again, and again, like sandpaper scraping his flesh. The salt stings his eyes as he glances under, holds his breath and looks, straining to see. He catches a glimpse of a dorsal fin in the semi-darkness, the fast flick of two gray tails. __**Sharks**__ he knows and sucks in a mouthful of water, gagging as it burns its way down his throat, absorbs the water from him. Sharks and each one has Alastair's face, a dozen of them, nudging him with their noses, caressing him with their rough scales. _

"_Help!" He calls out, his voice ringing in the relative silence, and the lone cry of a seagull is his only answer. There is no one so he swims, kicks his feet, moves through the water clumsily, his body made for land rather than the sea. "Sam!" Sam is leaning against the railing of a boat, gazing down into the water, hair moving in the wind. "Sam!" Sam's about to look up, about to see, and Ruby sneaks up behind him, throws her hands over his eyes and tickles the side of his neck with a kiss. _

"_Let's go inside Sammy." He can hear her breath into Sam's ear. _

"_Okay." Ruby's eyes blink to black as she follows him, winking at Dean behind Sam's back. _

"_Sam." The Alastair-sharks leer at him with open mouths and it looks like they're grinning, serrated toothed wicked smiles while they tear into him. They rip skin from his muscle, muscle from his bone, bones from his body. They devour him whole until there's nothing left, until he's just a patch of red water amid the vast expanse of blue; a fading ripple in the endless sea. _

_His amulet sinks to the bottom slowly, and a shark swallows it before it hits the sand._

_

* * *

_

Sam won't let him go back in the house with the freaky people in the walls. He wants to go, to find the missing kid, to do his job, but Sam slaps a dusty journal with yellowing pages into his hands and shoves him back.

"Stay here."

"Fuck that, I'm going with you."

"Do you honestly believe you can crawl around in confined spaces without getting stuck or killed? You don't move that quickly anymore."

"Bitch." He grumbles, because Sam is right, because now he's six steps too slow and almost fifteen pounds too heavy. He's drinking more booze than he should, he's losing sleep, always hunting, but his damn waistline continues to grow, already pressing too tightly against his newest pair of jeans.

"Jerk. Read the diary and don't let anyone die."

The mother and her daughter stand huddled together in the dark. It's sweet, endearing really, the way a mother loves her child, a child loves her mother. It's a type of love he's never experienced, never felt himself, not recently. He's pretty sure his mom loved him, loved him more than she cared about herself, as much as she loved his brother. His beautiful mother who kissed him goodnight, let him climb into her bed when he had nightmares, snuggle him close and sing him softly to sleep. His mom taught him how to be a parent, how to raise his little brother, how to blow on his cuts so they didn't sting, how to get him to take his medicine. His mom unintentionally taught him everything he needed to know, all that was valuable. Dad taught him how to fight, how to salt and burn, how to stay alive but it was so much more important to know how to change a diaper and warm a bottle, just where to tickle Sammy's feet to make him laugh. In the end, that proved to be more essential than hand to hand combat ever could be.

"I'm scared, mom." The girl whispers, her tears glowing silver in the moonlight.

"Don't you worry sweetheart, nothing's going to happen to you." He doubts his words are of any comfort to her, he doubts she's even listening. There's a scrabbling outside the door, like rats crawling across hardwood, except rats don't carry knives, and they sure as hell don't stab them through rotting boards. "Get behind me." The girl clutches two handfuls of his t-shirt, sniffling, screaming loudly, obscenely familiar, and for a second he thinks he's in hell again, listening to the wails of tortured souls, Alastair's handiwork ringing in the darkness.

"Don't let it get me mom, don't let it get me." He wants a weapon, something sharp, something pointy, something with flames or bullets or hell he'd take a can of pepper spray at the moment. He can't keep this sweet little teenage girl and her mother from being stabbed to death by a chick that is only some fur and four legs away from being an animal.

The crazy bitch screams like a banshee, steadily hacking away at the decrepit boards. He kicks her in the face once, feels the crunch of cartilage beneath his boot, can see the gush of blood from her nose even in the blackness. Her blood is on his shoe and when he kicks again he strikes nothing but empty air and solid wood. He turns his back once to console the sobbing women and the girl slides in through a hole in the floor he didn't know existed. She's swinging the blade like a baseball bat, in a wide arc, a hiss sounding as it cuts through the air. The women cry out and press themselves flat against the back wall, shivering all over. She's coming closer and he can't force himself to budge, can't get his feet to respond to the signals in his brain, his instincts that tell him to fight or flee, or both, to just fucking do _something_. She's coming for him, right for his stomach; she's going to split him wide open, the best kind of late abortion there is. The demon will spill out onto the floor in a burst of blood and fluid and then Sam will shoot her, rush him off to the hospital where they'll sew him back up.

A shot echoes in the night and blood spurts warm onto the front of his shirt, the curve of his belly. The psycho-bitch gives one last, dying swipe, the very tip of the knife grazing over his abdomen, leaving a long, thin cut, barely deep enough to draw blood.

"Everyone okay?" Sam has a gun in each hand, two more tucked into his belt.

"We're just peachy." The girl and her mother are a shaky mess, probably traumatized as hell. "Aren't we ladies?"

"Sure." The teen perks up, kids are resilient things, it's why he likes them. Kids can go through terrible things and bounce back; it has something to do with their little psyches. "Thanks Mr. Winchester." She hugs him, fresh little jailbait that she is, a kid who probably sells Girl Scout cookies on the weekends. The thought of cookies makes him hungry and he finds himself craving thin mints dipped in peanut butter.

"Why didn't you move Dean? She was going right at you, why didn't you move out of the way?" Sam confronts him in the car, pulls over onto the side of an abandoned stretch of highway, where he has nowhere to run, not that he can run very quickly anymore. Sam could catch him in seconds.

"I froze up, uh hormones you know. All I want to do is cry and eat pickles." Sam gives him a special type of bitchface, the one that says _You're an idiot_ and _Tell the truth right now_ with a side of _I'm worried about you_. Or maybe he's reading the words in the wrinkles forming on Sam's forehead, most likely the latter.

"Dean." Sam only needs to sigh his name and the water works start. He's becoming a giant girl with short hair and no boobs and a cock.

"I wanted her to cut me open Sam. I wanted her to gut me like a fish. I wanted her to kill it." He's tired of this, this intricate dance of internal angst that plagues him. The next motel they go to he's finding a staircase and throwing himself down, hopefully inflicting some major damage before Castiel shows up to save him, indulging in his angelic knight in shining armor complex.

"You need to stop this Dean. No more drinking in the mornings, no more sleepless nights. You have to stop blaming yourself for something that wasn't your fault." Sam rubs his hand wearily over his face, a tired, worn out gesture. "It has to be hard on you; I can't imagine what it was like in hell. I don't think I will ever be able to comprehend everything you had to go through. But demons took advantage of you Dean, they used you against your permission, they _raped_" Sam adds emphasis on the word, the color draining from his cheeks, swallowing back tears. "you. They did. They raped you and that isn't your fault. It's never the victims fault." Sam speaks with conviction and Dean just knows he's been online reading articles about rape trauma syndrome and PTSD, schooling himself in psychological methods and terms.

"Well don't you sound like Olivia Benson, Sam." He growls out, at least he tries to, the sound that breaks free from his throat is low and hoarse, a croaking sob, weighted down with his guilt and misery. "You're wrong, you know that? I don't have anyone to blame for this but myself."

"That's what Alastair and the demons want you to believe Dean. Don't listen to them."

"I'm capable of thinking for myself dammit." He slams his hand down on the hood of the Impala, hard enough to bruise the area down near the base of his wrist, where the bone is closest to the skin. "Those people back in that house Sam, those _monsters_, I was just like them in hell. No, I was worse than them. I knew what I was doing was wrong but I didn't care. I tortured souls in hell and it felt so fucking good. I could make them hurt as bad as I had Sam, and after a few years, it wasn't about revenge anymore, it was for pleasure. I loved it, I was good at it, and every night I'd put down my toys with a smile on my face. I was a demon, I was worse than a demon. Demons don't recognize right and wrong, I did, and the knowledge of how wrong everything I was doing made it even better." The tears flow in earnest, running steadily down his cheeks, reminiscent of when he severed arteries, felt souls' blood spray up into his face. "Down in hell, Alastair and I, we were DeanandAlastair Sammy. He was" He brushes tears away furiously with the hem of his shirt. "He was more than my mentor, he was all I had. He raped me on the rack for thirty years and my first day off it I went crawling back to him like a horny girl on prom night. I did whatever he asked me to, I made him proud of me, and when he asked me to do something for him, something he'd never asked for from anyone before, I said yes. I always said yes to Alastair."

"Dean." Sam tugs him into a hug, a big hand resting on the top of his head.

It feels like the forgiveness he doesn't deserve.

* * *

"Hi Dean." Alastair says to him, low and husky, in the hushed tones of intimacy, saccharine with affection.

"You're not Alastair." He gulps, remnants of bitter tasting water on his tongue, the metallic taste of the silver colored flask. This can't be Alastair, can't be him because it _looks_ like him, the demon him, Alastair's true form. Alastair's empty, black sockets gaze at him, gray, leathery tongue poking out from between his mangled lips, the blotches of decrepit skin. His teeth are sharp white points when he smiles, the dark ugliness of his face so real, so obscenely horrible in the moonlight. Alastair can't look like himself up here; he has to pick himself out a human suit, some poor bastard's body to crawl into. "You're the siren, but boy buddy, did you pick the wrong shape. You shoulda tried Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie, or the two of them making out." His stomach flutters, flutters in that vibrantly warm way from his youth, the same exuberant tingle he felt in kindergarten when the cute little blonde girl in his class kissed him on the cheek. Rainbows and sunshine and heart crap, the first stirrings of love. "Cause uh.." His heart _wants_, sudden and unexpected, a painful longing, _Oh Alastair I.._ and he forces himself to exhale and keep talking. "You know Angelina stole Brad because she wanted Jen and had to settle." He tries to picture the image in his head and all he gets is a close up of Alastair's face, angry and powerful and _wanting_ him.

"Hush Dean." Alastair's…not Alastair's, the siren's, the siren's finger touches to his lips, strokes and slips gently between them, running gently along his bottom teeth. "Don't worry, baby." The siren sounds like Alastair too, flat and raspy, firey and dark like hell itself. "I know just what you need. I know what you want. _I'm_ what you want."

"I don't want Alastair." His voice sounds weak and timid, unconvincing even to himself.

"Maybe not Alastair personally." The siren nuzzles him, drags Alastair's snake-like, pointed tongue across his cheek, smearing him with the wetness of it, the too hot trail of glistening saliva. "But you want to be needed, you want to be wanted. Alastair wants you. He's your fantasy Dean." The siren kisses him, that tongue slick sliding in his mouth, venerating the inside with lustful vehemence. "Someone who's always happy to see you, someone whose day you make a bit brighter." The siren's hands move down his chest, to his jeans, the jeans that are five sizes larger than they used to be and still too tight. The siren ignores his stomach completely, the firmness of it, the identifiable significance. It ignores it because for all the ugliness and barbed teeth, it isn't Alastair, it isn't Alastair and somehow that terrifies him more. "Let me love you sweetheart and then you can love me back."

* * *

His insides twist hotly in his belly, and oh god oh god oh _god_ a flare of hurt unfurls from somewhere beneath his liver, twisting rapidly up the length of his spine. Shit, it can't be good, it can't be normal, not like anything about his life recently has been in the vicinity of normal. He stares down at the taut, ugly curve of his rounded stomach. He can't remember the last time he was fucking thin, all lean, attractive muscle and toned pecks. His days of one night stands are over, because there's no chick in the world who wants to have sex with a man whose abdomen is distended, a makeshift home to a possible demon.

A fresh flicker of hurt slides through his body, spiking his blood with the heat of it, the soul wracking agony. Forty years in hell with Alastair can't even compare to this. He's had his intestines torn out and now it feels like he's being ripped apart from the inside. Maybe he is, maybe whatever's inside of him is tearing away at his internal organs, slicing the softest, most vulnerable parts of him into pieces, long, jagged bleeding pieces of severed flesh. Part of him hopes the kid, if it's a kid, if it's even a modicum human, is going to come out just fine, bright eyed and fat cheeked like Sam when he was little, something warm and squishy and innocent. He's never really _wanted_ to be a parent before, never honestly thought he'd have some helpless mass of flesh and bone that depends on him, but at that moment he's hoping for a normal child with ten fingers and ten toes, hell, six toes and a flipper as long as it isn't a demon.

"Dean?" Sam sits up lazily on the other bed, rubbing at his eyes, blinking away sleep in the silent darkness. Dean can hear his own breathing and fuck it's loud, harsh, frightened panting as he reaches a hand down to touch the growing wet spot on the bed. His fingers come away bloody and the blood gleams crimson in the light that casts yellow across the room when Sam switches on the lamp. "Dean, what's wrong?" Sam catches sight of the blood and his eyes widen to perfect circles; terrified, moving from his red smeared hand to the bulge of his stomach beneath the ugly, pale, tangerine colored motel sheets. "Don't….don't worry. We can handle this." Sam makes soothing motions with his hands and he swallows down his own rising panic, tries to gulp down the hot, heavy lump in his throat. He feels like he's swallowed a brick covered in nails and it's scratching him raw. "Just hold on. You're going to be okay." He doesn't know if he can believe Sam or if he even wants to. He thinks it would be better to die than be forced to live with the thing he so willingly created with Alastair during the end of his stay in hell. Sam lays out holy water and salt, towels from the bathroom and the little sucky thingy doctors use to clean out a baby's nose. This is fucking happening, it's not a dream or a nightmare and no way is he still in hell, Alastair spooned up against his back. It is said that there is beauty in birth, but he finds no beauty now, no miracles.

He knows pain like he knows his dick and this is an entirely new experience. Sharp, searing, spasms of white hot pain, fresh blood pooling on the mattress below him. He wishes for the first time that he was just a soul in hell so this would be only pain, not a life altering, possibly life defining moment, the scariest shit he's ever done. He'd take a roomful of demons over this, any time, any demon. He'd go a round of torture with Alastair just to make it _stop_.

"Okay, I think I…I can…" Sam makes a wet, sick noise, pulls his hands away and Sam's fingers are stained with red, drenched in it. He's about to ask if losing that much blood is fatal but he feels _it_, whatever it is, coming free, separating from his body after nine long months, wrenching free with Dean's help and then Cas is there and for some reason all he can think of is how Castiel is going to get his blood on the sleeves of his trench coat.

"Lie back now Dean." Castiel says, hushed, demanding, urgent, ordering him and he's only concerned with the lack of sound. A baby should be crying right? The pressure in his throat builds up again, too intense this time, and he watches helpless as a plume of black smoke pours from his mouth. He can taste the heat and sulfur of it, the ash and evil. The smoke rushes into the limp, lifeless bundle in Cas' hands and is it dead? Was it born dead? No, it starts to cry a strange, haunting cry and he pushes up wearily on his elbows, craning his neck to see.

It isn't a baby. It's a demon, a small, human-like mass of black and gray skin. It looks just like demons do beneath their host's flesh; dark empty caverns for eyes, sharp, deformed teeth, a parody of human features twisted and mangled and contorted into something inexplicably awful. The thing wails and he leans forward to touch it, takes his and Alastair's ugly, evil demon baby into his arms and gazes at it, so consumed by disgust and horror, and something primal, something so basic he can't fight it despite his soul's screaming. The imitation baby nuzzles to his chest and sinks its gnarled, crooked fangs into his right peck, sucks his blood from him, pointed, hot little tongue lapping blood where it trickles down his skin, claws digging into his muscle and holding on tight. _Our little boy_ he hears Alastair croon, feather soft and teasing.

"Dean, wake up." He smells breakfast, syrup and sausage, fried potatoes and a pile of ketchup. He opens his eyes, half expecting his decrepit, evil little child to be nestled up against him, licking blood from his skin, but all he finds is Sam holding out a plate and the worrisome swell of his stomach.

* * *

"I can't believe you're giving me grief about this." Sam laughs, laughs right into his fucking face, mouth open wide, so wide Dean can count every one of his teeth. "You, of all people Dean." Sam brushes past him, brushes his irritation away, wipes it off him like dust on the front of his shirt.

"No, hold on." His fingers find Sam's arm and he digs them in, clutching him so damn tight. "I know you're leaving at night and I know you're going off with her to do whatever the fuck it is you do." At least once a week he lies alone, stuffing his face with junk food and booze until he passes out.

"You don't know where I'm going or who I'm with Dean. And even if I am with Ruby, you have no right to judge."

"You bet your ass I have a right to judge you Sam, she's a demon." Demons are _bad_ and Sam has to be able to see that, has to feel it with every fiber of his being, every inch of him. He was a demon for ten years and he knows it. There wasn't one good or decent or normal thought in his head those years, just his sick desire for pain, his gratification, the melodic sound of petrified screaming in the dark. He's the way he is because of demons, shattered inside and shivering, missing a piece of himself and carrying a piece of someone else.

"Newsflash Dean, I have demon blood inside me and you have a demon inside you." Sam puts his hand up, eyebrows knit together in concentration. "Before you open your mouth, just remember something Dean. Azazel infected me when I was a baby, I had no choice, I didn't ask for this to happen to me, but you?" Sam laughs again, this time it's a biting, weary laugh, one that hurts Dean's soul. "You wanted that." His skin feels too tight and he hurts everywhere, all of him aching, heat pooling behind his eyes. "I'll" Sam looks sorry, sorry _for_ him, not for what he's said and fuck it he's going to cry, give into the ultimate act of girliness, he'll wait until his brother leaves and then he'll bury his face in something soft and relatively sound proof and just sob. "I'll be back Dean. I'll bring you some donuts from the bakery on my way in." Donuts don't make it better, a sarcastic quip is forming on his tongue but he doesn't think he can talk without crying, so he bottles it down and nods.

He's not going to cry, he tells himself, finding the bed and sinking into the softness, letting the mattress cradle him, take his new, unfamiliar weight off his feet, the pressure from his newly acquired twenty pounds off his knees. When he lies flat the tears can't fall, they build up, maybe forever, piling one on top of the other, into a tower of tears that will shimmer and quake in the florescent light. He closes his eyes, can feel the tears push against his eyelids, hot and persistent, burning him, and he opens them again to find Castiel standing near his feet, watching him with a focused intensity, like Dean is the most interesting thing he's ever known.

"Dude, that's creepy." The levees break in one magnificent blast, tears cascading down his face, dripping onto his shirt in a physical manifestation of his fragility. It's a great impression to make on the angel that yanked his ass out of hell, way to show his worth, how he was definitely the right man to pull out of the pit; the man who's going to have a demon for a baby and cries when he's alone in his motel room. Real smooth. "Fuck." His tears wet the back of his wrist and each time he wipes one away three more take its place.

"It's not a weakness to cry, Dean." Cas and his mind reading mojo, always unwanted, there's nothing like being mind violated by an angel before bed.

"I'm a man." He's got the dick to prove it, and it's about the only thing in hell that Alastair couldn't take away from him, not mentally. Alastair ripped his cock off about sixty different ways while he was on the rack, each method worse than the next, but it always came back, right where it was supposed to be, and he was always Dean. Alastair liked him for who he was, _my boy Dean, my pretty, pretty boy_.

"I've seen the world Dean, every second of it. This is not weakness." Cas' thumb touches him, soft underneath his eye, brushes through the slickness there. Castiel's breathe mists warm across his lips, tickling the edges of his mouth, the cleft in his chin. Cas can breath and it makes the angel a bit more human, less of a robot in the bone and flesh, wearing his trench coat of angelic righteousness.

"Uh.." Cas is _so_ close, closer than most people have a right to be. He can make an exception for Cas, Cas who liberated him from the darkness, and that alone is all he needs, all the prerequisites necessary for him to allow Castiel to push his face in so close their noses are almost touching. Angels don't have a concept of personal space, not from what he's seen. It's completely innocent with angels, mild curiosity and ignorance, the inability to understand that being close is something a person has to earn. Demons are the opposite. Demons recognize personal space and they like to invade it. They'll do anything to break a person's comfort zone, make 'em squirm, and sticking their heads and their hands where they don't belong is just the tip of the iceberg.

"You are strong Dean Winchester, you are righteous, and I would raise you from perdition until there was nothing left to raise, and still I would try." Cas is such a girly angel, he sounds like a bad Hallmark card, something straight out of daytime TV. The Dean he was before, the old Dean, the strong, whole Dean he isn't would have laughed, murmured something about a chick flick moment. The Dean he is now, the puzzle of his old self that's missing a few edges, a center piece or two, the new Dean breathes in the words, lets them warm the coldest parts inside him, the little black recesses of his heart.

"Thanks." He says on an exhale, his entire body feeling fuzzy, a good kind of fuzzy; a baby's blanket kind of soft, wrapped up and loved and wholesome. He waits for Castiel to move away, for the chasm of normality to resume, and is met with only furthered proximity, a too close, exhilarating intimacy. "Cas you're too…mmmph." Holy shit an angel is kissing him, tongue sliding between his lips, tasting of nothing, simple spit and the lingering bitterness of his vessel's last meal. Cas kisses him hard, kisses him weak, unsure and completely sure at once, hesitant and then courageous. Castiel's never kissed someone before, he can tell from the clumsy push of his tongue, the click of their teeth colliding when Castiel leans in too far, too eager. Cas leads him back and he follows, sprawling out, Castiel's weight pushing him deeper into the bed.

There's a sudden surge of energy, a circle and a kick. Cas feels it, the solid little movement against his stomach, their bodies touching everywhere they can, everywhere there's room. Cas feels _it_ and he stops, mouth and tongue freezing, going slack and sluggish.

"I have to go." Castiel's up and away, easing off.

In the stillness, the demon kicks again.

* * *

"You really should be careful Deano." Alastair says when he can speak again, his voice a harsh, ragged sound filtering past the salt and blood in his throat. "You're in a delicate condition." Alastair's eyes drift to the distinct shape beneath his t-shirt; the protrusion of his abdomen. "Wouldn't want Alastair Jr. coming too early."

"Only another two months." He remarks absently, pouring holy water along the blade of a saw. "It wouldn't even die if it was born now." It won't die and there really is no turning back. Tomorrow is today but yesterday is gone forever.

"Tsk tsk." Alastair shakes his head, clicking his tongue against his teeth. "Post partum already Dean? I thought you'd make a better mommy." Alastair's laugh dissolves into a scream as Dean calmly begins to saw off one of his toes, working the blade across Alastair's socked foot until the bleeding stub falls to the floor. "Someone's angry. Hormone's getting to you darling? Don't worry; daddy knows you don't mean it. Baby knows it too, don't you?" Alastair's speaking to his stomach and the thing inside him gives a twitch, does a three sixty inside him.

"Shut up Alastair." Another toe; blood gushes in a slow, steady stream from Alastair's foot, blood pooling on the floor.

"Striking nerves am I? You're so _easy _Dean. Easy to torture, easy to fuck, easy to break. I could have convinced you to breed with me your first day off the rack and you would have lied back like the slut you are. My little Dean, so damn eager to please." He shoves a handful of salt in Alastair's mouth, makes him chew and swallow, hand clamped tightly over his lips, blood oozing between the cracks of his fingers. "I hope our baby inherits my self esteem. Your father might have been content with you; I have higher hopes for my son. Of course, John did too. Guess that's why Sam was born. I bet he knew you were a disappointment even then Dean, thought to himself "I'm going to need another one, a good one, a strong son, not this pathetic bitch"." Alastair spits salt into his face, on his cheeks; it slips hotslick_wrong_ down his jaw. "I think I'll do most of the raising Deano. You're just an incubator."

"Great. I don't want it." It would be so easy to give it to Alastair, get it away from him, out of his life, out where he would never have to think of it again; feel it twist or squirm inside him.

"I've been doing some thinking recently Dean." He lets Alastair talk while he turns his back, searching for his next weapon, letting Alastair's badly amputated toes shrivel on the floor. "I'm willing to take my chances with our little guy not making it to hell with you. We could always make another, and another, and another. You're gonna breed me a one big happy family. We'll have us a Brady Bunch." Alastair is in his face, blood sour breath misting too hot across his lips; the smell of pennies on his tongue. Alastair grabs his throat before he can move, steel hard fingers digging into his muscles, collapsing his windpipe, choking the life out of him with effortless, malicious grace. He can appreciate good torture techniques even now and Alastair is and will always be the best.

"Ngh." Bubbles from his lips, a strangled, half dead word. There isn't enough blood getting to his brain and he can't remember what the word began as, what he was trying to ask for.

"I'll see you in hell Deano." Alastair jams a knee hard into his belly, causing a wet burst inside him, a rush of fluid down his thighs. It's an ecstasy of pain, a knife coiling in his gut, and yet all he can think, all he can beg for is _oh yes oh yes kill it please, bash its evil little skull in, kick me again Alastair __**please**_. His lungs burn and he's bleeding and Alastair beats him like he never has, just blow after blow with his fists, no knives or instruments, only the intimacy of flesh striking flesh. He'll die and he'll go to hell, he'll lie on that rack for eternity if Alastair will only kill what he hasn't wanted since his time in hell.

Darkness; serenity, the sound of blood pumping in his ears, the whooshing noise of his heart. When his eyelids finally do flicker open Alastair is flat against the wall, writhing under Sam's power. His stomach tightens, bright, blinding pain, Alastair dying in a burst of incandescent light, almost righteous and he's slipping back into the depths of unconsciousness. _Die, creature die_ is the mantra in his head, trailing like a ribbon through his skull.

* * *

"Are you alright?" Cas sits quiet and solemn by his bed, hands resting on his knees, looking like he's just kicked a little girl's kitten in the face.

"Good." He croaks, the inside of his mouth and the surface of his tongue dry and sour. "No, really." He rasps when Castiel does his angel head tilt of confusion. "Morphine, s'good stuff." He can't feel the myriad of bruises on his body, every piece of him broken and fractured under Alastair's hands. The drugs have him on a fleeting high, numbed up and peaceful.

"I'm sorry." Castiel drops his eyes to the cream linoleum flecked with gray. "I failed you Dean." Cas won't look him in the face, instead he is staring at his stomach, big, sad blue eyes; the same look Sam used to get when they watched lions hunt down wildebeest on the discovery channel.

He makes a tentative glance at his chest and torso. He's almost willing to believe there is a god in heaven, because there can't be more proof of his existence in the world than the flat plane of his abdomen. He can see his fucking feet and it's too good for words, it's relief and pie and his first cup of coffee rolled into one, it's heaven and sugar and snowflakes melting sweetly in his blood. He's hot again, he's thin again, he's _Dean_ again, no added baggage, no demon spawn nestled just above his intestines, putting pressure on his bladder and his spine.

"Cas, man, don't apologize." He tries to smile; his broken cheekbone throbs in protest. "This is great, no more demon baby." It's not great; no matter how happy he might be, wrapped up in his ephemeral pleasure. He still broke the first seal and he's going to deal with that guilt when it settles in his chest as soon as his excitement fades like bubbles on the surface of freshly poured champagne. "I was worried we'd have to drown the thing in holy water after it was born." Castiel doesn't laugh at his bad joke, doesn't even give a courtesy smile. "Where'd it go? What did it look like? Alien? Predator?"

"You don't remember?"

"Remember what? I was out cold." There's a sting in his stomach when he shifts on the sheets, slides his legs apart and together. "You salt and burn it to be sure it was dead?"

"I disposed of the remains."

"Awesome."

He doesn't ask for details.

* * *

Sam Wesson talks to Dean Smith about his dreams. They're wild, freaky things, maybe even a little kinky, salt around the room and guns under pillows and shit. Dean listens while he brews them coffee, non-fat, soy milk for flavor.

"Do you ever dream about stuff like that?" Sam shudders and swallows hard, sets his mug down on the coffee table.

"Nope. Everything up here is business." His thumb is warm against his temple, burning hot where it touched the overheated sides of his coffee cup. "It's why I'm the manager and you're the guy down in tech support. It's all about priorities." For three weeks he's lived and slept and breathed business, spread sheets and power points are his blood, twisted deep into his bones.

"Really? That's kinda boring dude." Sam finds the sugar he hid under the sink and dumps five spoonfuls into his cup.

"Yeah well." He's glad this is the first time he's met Sam Wesson, because Sam has no idea when he's lying.

At night he dreams of Alice and his son; everything he's lost. Alice was a manipulative bitch, just a pair of perky tits and long, long smooth legs but now she's in his head every night. Alice who drank one too many glasses of eggnog at her office Christmas party and still thought she was sober enough to drive their son to his parent's house for Christmas Eve. Little Danny who was only a month old, didn't do much more than sleep and eat and cry, big green eyes and brown fuzz for hair. He'd been so proud to show off his little boy, let his sister Jo dress him up in fruity outfits, tiny red sweaters with reindeer and those gay little sailor suits, his mom cooing over Danny while he slept. His dad would've pat him on the shoulder and told him just how proud he was, his dad Bob who was always proud of him, but he would have looked him in the eyes that night as Dean fed his son a bottle and said that Danny was the best damn thing Dean had ever done. He'd wanted that so fucking badly and it had all disappeared with one phone call. He'd just gotten to his parents house, left work forty minutes early to make the drive in time, and he'd been met by two police officers. He stood at the county morgue for fifteen minutes, staring at the small charred body that was his son and after that there wasn't a reason to come home from work early anymore. He buried himself in his work, lived and breathed it, stared at his computer until his eyes stung and headaches pounded on the inside of his skull.

"You must really love your job." Sam pours more sugar in his drink, so much it makes Dean's mouth water at the thought of sweet crystals melting on his tongue, delicious, empty calories.

"It's my life." What a miserable life it is. Four weeks ago he was putting ten percent of his pay check into a college fund for Daniel. His boy was going to go to Stanford like his father.

"But doesn't it feel wrong to you? Like there's something missing?"

_You have no idea_ he wants to say, every muscle in his chest raw and aching, a thousand unsaid words piled against his ribs.

* * *

His innermost secrets are out where the world can see them, his skull split open, his every thought compiled in pages, volumes of his life stored in mediocre writing. If there's one then there is another, sequence by sequence, and somewhere this Carver Edlund guy might be writing a sequel, chock full of his days in hell. People are going to read about it, get right inside him, people who don't know him, who've never seen him, people who he's nothing more than a literary character and half naked drawing on a cover of a crappy novel. They're going to know Dean better than he knows himself, they're going to read what he did and hate him, or worse, coo over demon baby, giggle about his relationship with Alastair. These girls pair him up with his little brother, and boy are they going to be thrilled when the next book comes out. Alastair enjoyed taking different forms on occasion; sometimes he was dad, Sam, Bobby, mom, whoever he wanted, whichever body struck his fancy. He's been fucked by his father and his brother and Bobby, had his mom's hands trail down his sides, her nails dig sharp into his skin, tearing him worse than a knife. Chuck, the dude's name even sounds like one for third rate author, a guy whose "art" is a day by day, detail by detail biography. Sure enough, he's a nervous wreck of a little guy, drunk off his ass, smelling of hooch and a day or two without a shower.

"Oh shit Dean, I'm so sorry man." Chuck apologizes as soon as they're alone, sitting in his living room, Chuck nursing a bottle of beer. "I had no idea what I was doing to you. Everything Alastair did to you. I thought it was just twisted writing, you know, I was channeling my inner Stephen King. I thought I was evolving to a different level of horror."

"You're no Stephen King and you weren't creating anything. I'd have gone down into that pit whether or not you were writing a novel." He gives Chuck comfort because he has none to give himself, but Chuck knows that; the guy is basically in his friggin' head. "The fact that women ages thirteen to forty are going to read about it is an added bonus."

"You have no idea how many girls are going to ship you and Castiel. They're going to go crazy over canon homosexuality." The meanings of ship and canon are lost on him.

"I'm not gay."

"Dude, I know. Every time you...uh, how did I phrase it? Lost yourself to the wild oblivion of primal ecstasy." Chuck's cheeks flush red, the blush is even visible beneath his beard.

"Hey man, as long as they stop saying I fuck my brother."

"Yeah, no. The Wincest isn't going to stop."

"Wincest?"

"Winchester, incest, Wincest?"

"Did you make that up?"

Chuck coughs into his hand, cracks open a fresh beer and hands it to him.

"I can take out the chapters with Alastair and little Dean, if you want." He gulps down beer and it's cold and frosty and delicious, a foamy heaven on his tongue.

"Don't call it that Chuck." It was a part of him; a piece of his own flesh and soul, dark and evil but it was _his_, his and Alastair's. He took in some _Alastair_ and together they made an extension of hell, a small, screaming portion of it. He never was forced to see it, and that is the closest thing to an act of kindness Alastair would ever do.

"Sorry. It made for better character development in the story."

"Anything for literature." This is one of the reasons he doesn't read, the written word is pure sadism, uncensored, graphic sadism. The imagination runs wild while reading and the pictures in his head are far worse than any he can see in real life, mostly because he has seen, quite literally, _everything_, bones protruding from mangled skin, the mangled mush of his own gray matter, the web-like appearance of nerves.

"I can make it up to you." Chuck twitches; he's a twitchy little guy, fingers fumbling through a stack of crumpled white papers, marked in red ink. "It's only the first draft, so there's spelling mistakes and stuff, but this is what happened after Alastair beat the shit out of you." There is a smudge of yellow-brown grease in the lower right corner, a blob of crusted ketchup over the title.

"On the Head of a Pin?"

_Sam breathes with a wrathful abandonment, blissful power coursing through his body. He is gloriously powerful, chest heaving, muscles straining as the malevolent demon Alastair lays dead at his feet._

"_Dean." Sam chokes, his beloved brother, his flesh and blood, crumpled on the floor like a ball of wadded tissue paper. He begs, pleading with his brother's fading essence not to pass over into the great abyss, because he isn't strong enough to handle it. He isn't brave enough to live in a world without Dean. "Oh god is he dead Castiel?"_

_The floor around Dean is covered in blood. His jeans are stained with it, bloody everywhere Sam's eyes can see. He wants to be somewhere else. He needs to be somewhere else, back in ramshackle houses haunted by poltergeists, evergreen woods visited regularly by wendigos. _

"_Not yet. He needs medical attention."Dean shivers all over, spasming, writhing in the agony that plagues his soul. _

"…_hurts…" Dean's head lolls listlessly onto his shoulder. His eyes are half lidded, empty pools of fading light, the windows to his soul going dark. _

"_We'll help you Dean." The angel, warrior of God's heavenly light, slowly reached to unbutton Dean's jeans. _

He can't bring himself to turn the page, just sits on Chuck's couch that smells like booze and lets the corners of the paper grow warm between his fingertips. He fucking _can't_ read it, can't learn about what is clearly best forgotten. He doesn't know and he doesn't want to know and he doesn't need to know.

"I know you aren't going to finish it Dean." Prophets of the Lord are as bad as know it all psychics, except they write terrible novels.

"I'm gonna go."

"I know that too."

He flips Chuck off.

"Knew it was coming!" Chuck calls out through the open door, the ties of his green robe coming out of their knot, dropping down and dangling by his socked feet.

* * *

Cas has the habit of showing up when he wants to be alone; angeling himself into the room in a quiet whisper, that look of seriousness always on his face, occasionally replaced by concern only a few months ago he wouldn't have thought Castiel was capable of. He knows better now, knows more about life, about heaven and hell, about angels and death and birth; the entire cycle of the world. Here, in this corner of the globe, this small, insignificant pocket, Cas seems just as flesh and bone as he does, clearly a little less human, but no less a _man_. Men are made of secrets and lies, good and bad, and so are demons. Demons and men are cut from the same proverbial stone and he thinks angels are too. Angels that are whiteness and black; purity and sin. Angels live in paradise supposedly, demons in hell, but he's been to hell and he lives on earth and they aren't very different. The logical, rational section of his brain concludes that heaven isn't too different either, that earth is the product of the two places combined, morphed and tangled together into a place of beauty and horror. Cas is a man standing with something he's supposed to protect, precious cargo, and he'll be damned if it isn't nice to be precious to someone, even if it's only temporary. To Cas he's Dean and he hasn't been Dean in a long, long time. He isn't sure who Dean is anymore, but Castiel, he knows, because Castiel knows his soul. As romantic and clichéd as it sounds, Cas knows his soul, every dark and dirty detail, every moment of light.

"What's up Cas? Seal about to be broken?" His life is normality again, demons and impending doom, all he's used to, all he knows how to deal with.

"Not at the moment." Two steps and Castiel is pushing down the covers, sliding stiffly into bed beside him.

"Hey there Cas, you cold?" Angels don't get cold; of course, they're angels, mighty and all powerful beings, made of the best parts of man and the worst of demons.

"I wanted to sit with you." Castiel's shoes are cold against his feet, hard where they rest against his ankles.

"A lesson about acting human buddy, usually you don't climb into bed with your friends. Not unless you're _special_ friends anyways."

"You and I are special friends Dean." Cas says it simply, openly, wholly honest, like the only thing Cas can't do is lie, not to Dean, to everyone else sure, but never Dean.

"I don't think you know what I mean by special."

"Special is to be unique and dear. You're both to me." There it goes, a tiny crack in his entire façade of aloofness and denial forms, dozens more branching off, the metaphorical windshield ruined and weak.

The feel of Castiel's tongue pushing into his mouth, hot and slippery, warm everywhere he was cold, is too powerful to forget, and he kisses Cas first. Their foreheads collide because Castiel leaned forward to meet him, hit him head on halfway. It's not better than before, not worse, a kind of sameness, a stalemate as he gives and Cas takes out of fear, suppresses his hunger for this; the desire that has his hands trembling where they rest on the back of Dean's neck. God, Castiel can _want_ and the angel's humanity is arriving in degrees it seems.

"Can I.." Cas trails off, swallows thickly, so brokenly mortal for an instant. "touch you there, like before?" He doesn't remember a before but he nods, lets his legs move where Castiel pushes them.

"Before? Did we have dream sex or something you kinky angel?" He tries to laugh even as Chuck's writing drifts through his head. _The angel, warrior of God's heavenly light, slowly reached to unbutton Dean's jeans._ Cas has seen him down there, at his most helpless, soothed him and touched him and he has no recollection of the moment at all, not a single phantom, blurry memory inside his head.

"We've never had intercourse Dean." Castiel makes a surprised, awestruck noise at the sight of him, grips him lightly with a firm hand. A thumb brushes experimentally over the head of his cock and yeah, that's nice, that is something he recognizes, something he can expand on. He can make it good, he can make it great, he can make it anything he wants because Alastair taught him, forced him how to learn to suck a cock and take a dick and they are activities he happens to be very, very good at. _You're a giver Dean_ Alastair had told him, fingers fisted in his hair, fucking his mouth until he gagged _you give give give. _"Don't think of him Dean." Castiel is in his mind again, or maybe not, maybe it's obvious that right now he'd think of Alastair, he'd revert right back to weakness. Alastair doesn't own him and he's going to prove it, to Cas and to himself and to the fucking world. "Shh." Cas hums, in his mind again, chastising him with a soft click of his tongue against his teeth before he bends over and licks him, goes right inside. It isn't the first time he's been touched down there, flicked warmly open, two thumbs spreading him apart.

He flexes his fingers against the sheets, his toes curling inside his socks.

"Ugh, fuck yeah, Cas." There are goose bumps on his skin, sweat pooling in the creases at his temples and in his forehead.

"Dean?" Cas arches an eyebrow as Dean pushes him onto his back, slips his belt off. The belt lands on the floor with a light thump, coiling like a leather snake on the carpet.

"You'll like this." He promises a promise he can keep.

*NC-17 material removed*

"Cas…" He whimpers, broken and needy, together and content.

"Dean." Castiel's hand closes around him, one, two, three tugs and he's coming, bucking, weak spasms as he spills onto his and Cas' bellies, white sparks dancing behind his eyelids; moaning again when there's wet heat inside him as Castiel finishes too.

"Did I rock your angelic world?"

"You rocked the bed." Good ole Cas, serious and lovable, literal in every definition of the word.

"Remember our talk about expressions?"

"I remember everything you say to me Dean." That makes him smile, warmth spreading to his cheek muscles, stretching the skin of his chin and jaw. Cas is good to him, Cas is great, and he slowly eases himself up, spreading his sweat slicked thighs apart, flopping lazily onto his back, delicious soreness between his legs.

"Remind me never to drunk dial you." He shivers as the adrenaline wears off; the faint afterglow of his orgasm leaves him, cold all the way to the bone. Cas tucks the blankets past his waist and still this is nothing like it ever was with Alastair. This is normal, this is sitting together after sex, this is Dean Winchester without blood smeared on his skin.

"I didn't come here tonight for this." Castiel gestures at their nakedness, a vague expression of disbelief on his face. "You don't remember that night." He doesn't need to ask which night, he knows, knows because there is only one night of his entire life he has no recollection of. "I saw you at Chuck's house." Then Cas has seen his failure. Cas has seen all his failures. He _is_ a failure, out in the open, exposed for everyone to look at. "I can show you that night, if you want."

"Okay." He'll go, if Castiel wants him to, if Castiel thinks it's good for him. Cas only has his best interests at heart, only wants to keep him safe, and maybe keep him happy, if he's capable of being happy anymore. He thinks the part of him that could feel more than pain and misery and self-hatred died when his mother did, went up in that same burst of smoke and heat, burnt away by that evil fire.

Two fingers on his forehead, warm where he's sweat cooled and damp.

The room is as he remembers; dark, a single florescent light bulb blinking, humming and buzzing above his head, sounds twisting into his ears, mixing with the echo of water on the pavement _drip drip drip drip_, chalk being washed away. He's on the ground and Alastair is going to town on him, kicking him with bloody and mutilated feet, the sharp, exposed bone of his half severed toe gleaming in the pale lighting. Alastair attacks him and there is a reason his brain blocked his out, pushed it away and hid it somewhere deep inside his mind. He's a broken mass of blood and bruises, swollen face and chin, stomach protruding above his body, poking out of him like a little mound of dough.

Cas doesn't handle Alastair any better than he did. Alastair beats the shit out of him effortlessly, as though Cas is a fly, an insignificant fly with feathered wings and a sense of righteousness, love for the world and everything in it. Alastair is going to send Castiel to haven, into paradise, like that's some kind of punishment. Sam saves the day and his little brother is powerful. Sam is strong, strong just like he is weak. He's always been weak and he's come to accept it, because he can't put off the inevitable, and he's supposed to be weak like Sam is supposed to be formidable. He cracks and he crumbles and he breaks while his brother is a wall, tall and invincible, killing Alastair slowly, squeezing him to death with his mind, black smoke pouring from Alastair's mouth while he writhes. _Way to go Sammy_ he whispers, the sound existing only inside his head, bouncing off the bones of his skull.

"We'll help you Dean." It's a page from Chuck's crappily written novel, same actions, same dialogue, same sense of dread pooling in the pit of his abdomen, making him hot and queasy and nervous, bile burning sour in his throat. Cas unzips his jeans and pulls them down, hikes up the bottom of his shirt, his fingers touching blood. So much blood, blood turning the seat and crotch of his jeans purple; tainting everything with red as red as any bouquet of roses, any two day old bottle of diner ketchup.

"It hurts." He hears himself say, surprisingly lucid, entirely coherent, voice clogged with pain, the effort to swallow and keep from crying. "Please!" His broken self thrashes, overwhelmed, and he continues watching himself lie bloody on the floor, crumpled up and bunched in agony. "Oh god Cas make it stop." He wonders what it feels like, if it is at all like being split in two, torn in half, worse or easier to bear than hours on the rack with Alastair. He knows the feel of a knife in his belly but he doesn't _know_ this.

He can't watch anymore, so he turns his face away. Sam retches somewhere behind him, wet and ugly. Moon beams are smoky silver ribbons dancing across the opposite wall. The him on the ground screams hoarsely, and it sounds like he's with Alastair again, like this is twice as painful as his time on the rack. It hurts just to listen and now he understands the burning in his throat when he woke up in the hospital, the feel of ground up glass and too dry sand. Silence cuts through the air like a knife, with a nearly audible twang, the world fading from unbearably loud to quiet.

"No." Sam breaks the silence, utters a soft and broken noise, sharp and sensitive where it hums low in this throat, word curling off his tongue in tendrils of invisible smoke. "We can't show him." _Show me what?_ This is his one chance for closure and he has to see, spins slowly on the heel of his foot, boot grinding into the cement. He peeks carefully between the creases of his fingers.

Cas and Sam's bodies are blocking his view, but he can make out one little, blood and mucous slick arm dangling in the space where Sam and Castiel's bodies don't meet. He can count five chubby fingers, so fucking _tiny_, tiny and perfect and smooth, silky baby skin. The arm looks completely normal, yet it must have a disfigured face, the jagged teeth and soulless black eyes of Alastair, wrinkled and rotting flesh on its cheeks and nose.

"I'll take you and Dean to the nearest hospital." Cas wraps the thing in Sam's jacket, sets the misshapen bundle down onto the ground. Castiel transports them away, leaving nothing but that motionless bundle, a puddle of blood on the dark gray floor.

If curiosity can kill a cat, then it can also break a man's heart into pieces, into a fine, red dust that scatters in the slightest breeze. His fingers peel back the layers of his brother's coat, the thin layer of worn cotton, and the breath is sucked right out of his lungs, so fast and painful he feels empty, empty and burning everywhere he's supposed to have oxygen, the pit of his stomach clenching in unsteady rolls of nausea. He's met with normality, simple normality, beautiful in the most heart wrenching of ways. The baby, _his_ baby, his and Alastair's baby, is simply a baby, no claws or fangs or beady caverns for eyes. Ten fingers and ten toes, tinged with blue, still warm from being inside him. His daughter, his daughter is the antithesis of the image in his head, the little boy laughing in the depths of hell with Alastair, crimson splashed across his small mouth. His little girl is small and precious and very, very dead, fine brown hair sticking up at the top of her skull, clumped and matted with blood. He's failed again and _this_ is quite literally his biggest failure, the eternal proof that solidifies his status as the world's biggest fuck up, a perpetual loser in his father's mind. _Bring me back now Cas_. He can't stare at her a moment longer, needs to stop himself from memorizing the shape of her tiny rosebud lips, pink and full like his are, the same lips Alastair loved to suck and bite until they bled.

"It was supposed to be a demon." His tears are warm, salty as they dribble over his lips, liquid that he licks away with the tip of his tongue. "I would have been more careful." This is one death he could have easily prevented; all it would have taken was an open mind and a pinch of self-respect, the suppression of his self-hatred and disgust. His one chance to make something good out of his time in hell and he blew it, let it waste away blow by blow to his stomach, dead before it had a chance to live. There won't be Barbie Dolls or little pink shoes or princess band-aids. There won't be blood and death and gnarled vicious small fingers sinking into his flesh, pulling it away in bits that are devoured by crooked fangs. "Did you bury her?"

"I burned her." He can almost smell the smoke, the stinging scent of burning flesh and gasoline, crackling grains of salt.

"I would've named her something normal, like Carolynn or Loraine."

"I know." Cas doesn't say he's sorry, that he understands, because he doesn't, and he can't. Castiel is more human than he used to be, but fully fledged emotions are beyond him. Cas can smile and maybe laugh, but he can't cry, he can't feel the warm little blossom of happiness in his heart, the metallic bitterness of sadness in his blood. "I can make you forget again." Two fingers at the ready, inching slowly closer to his head.

"Don't bother. It's good to know. There's no uncertainty." He'd sell his soul for ignorance. He'd sell his soul and be sent to hell all over again if he wouldn't have to live with doubts twisting in the back of his skull. He's just sad now; sad at the loss of what could have been if he'd been patient, if for once he'd tried to see the good, see his glass half full rather than half empty. "Thank you for showing me. I'd like to go to bed." Castiel nods wordless, mechanically arranging himself beneath the sheets, waiting for Dean to slide under too. He wants to sleep in the rare moments he is able to, because outside the threat of the apocalypse continues to rage, and right now is a brief moment of calm before the storm, the winds dying down as rain accumulates overhead.

"Goodnight." Cas curls around him, spooning warmly against his back, resting his nose and mouth at the base of his neck, holding him tight as the shivers of his sobs subside, pressing kisses into his skin where his neck meets his spine. The world still needs to be saved, but he's tired.

In his dreams, Alastair pets their little girl's brown hair, clutches her close, the two of them bathed in blood, white, white eyes watching him. _Come back to us Dean_. Someday he will, and for now, he can wait.

Damned once damned forever.

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**Reviews are appreciated, I'll link the full story to anyone who wants it.**


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